Syllables
by Foodstamp
Summary: Kyle thinks Stan can't write haiku to save his life. A robbery at the gas station gives them a chance to test that theory. StanxKyle, violence, character death, major angst. Oneshot.


Thank you so much to everyone who has read so far, and please forgive the wangstiness of my original author's notes. Really didn't mean to sound like such an attention whore; it was like six-thirty in the morning and I'm a little bitch when I'm tired. I'm still not sure what I think of this, but I appreciate the feedback so, so much! Thank you for bearing with me.

Warnings: Extreme angst, violence, language, death, mentions of drugs and noncon activity. I hope it was tastefully written, but I sort of doubt it.

* * *

Syllables

* * *

Stan is making out with Kyle at the back of the South Park Gas 'n Go when the man walks in. The door chime startles them apart--Kyle jerks away immediately, his face flushed, and both of them watch as the man unsteadily makes his way back towards the liquor shelves. He's in his late twenties or early thirties, his shape trembling and indeterminate under the bulk of his dirty green coat. They can smell him from twelve feet away: compost, skag, rubbing alcohol, cheap vodka. A heroin junkie between fixes. It's like watching a human train wreck.

Stan looks back at Kyle, thinking. They've been speaking in haiku for a few weeks now; a private joke against the absurdity of their school's retarded poetry unit. "Fuck-ing de-press-ing," he says, counting his syllables on his fingers. "I just want-ed to hang out. What's up with this shit?"

Kyle is way better than him. The words roll unhesitatingly off his tongue, like well-practiced music. "Stan, the real world hurts--in transit between terrors, no time to sit still."

"How the hell do you do that?" Stan demands.

"I don't know. It's just my favorite kind of poem."

"Well, they're fucking retarded. I mean, seventeen syllables? That's not enough room to convey anything truly meaningful. That's like saying, 'Hey, guys, here's a huge emotion, now condense it until it doesn't mean shit to anyone.'"

"It's more than enough! You just need to find the right words."

"Why bother? Actions speak so much louder," Stan scoffs, and captures his mouth again. They stumble a few steps before finding their bearings. Kyle sighs and curls his arms around Stan's neck, making soft, pleased noises as they lean backwards against the freezer door for support. Stan pins him there and pats his ass lightly through his jeans. The clerk on shift just pops his gum, turns a page in his magazine. He doesn't mind their company. They don't make trouble, they stop kissing around the grandmothers and small children, and they buy condoms from him like clockwork.

Kyle teases his fingers through Stan's bangs so he can see his eyes, like he always does before he spouts poetry. "Lips between my legs," he says, smiling shyly. "Skin that screams for ascension."

"Blowjobing in backseats," Stan replies.

"That's six syllables, Stan. Just try 'blowjobs' instead."

"Awesome! If you insist!"

They're laughing and brushing their lips together again when the junkie pauses not three steps away from them, gripping the neck of a bottle of Stoli. Stan promptly loses his kissing rhythm. Up close, the man looks and smells even worse--his teeth are an unbrushed brown, and his breath reeks of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Stan closes his eyes briefly against the stench. Kyle's a little too polite to turn away.

"Uh, hi," he says.

"Taylor," the man says lovingly.

Stan can't see Kyle's face, but he feels his arms tighten a little around his waist before they reluctantly break apart. "I'm sorry, I'm not Taylor," Kyle says. "Maybe you're thinking of somebody around here who looks like me."

Doubtful. No one local looks like Kyle. His untamable hair, expansive smile, soft intelligent eyes, the secret parts of his body that Stan reverently explores when they're alone. He's still a shade too skinny, but they've been working on that. They eat together six times a week. Hell, there are whole weekends when they follow each other back and forth between showers and chores and study sessions, unwilling to be apart for even a few minutes. And sometimes it's still not enough. They need more time than their lives really allow for.

And the strange man still lingers at his elbow, watching them intently, eating up their time. Stan tries to go back to kissing Kyle, but it feels like some sort of awkward camera show. "If you'll excuse us," he says, as patiently as he can.

"I've missed you so much, Taylor," the man whispers.

"I don't _know_ you," Kyle tells him helplessly.

Stan mentally starts composing a haiku, just so he won't flip out and deck the guy. _This moron's tweaking. Just ignore him, he'll get lost…concentrate on calm…ness._ Damn it. He always ends up with one too many syllables. If only he were the walking thesaurus Kyle is.

"You look beautiful," says the man, and Kyle awkwardly looks away.

There's a shuffle from behind the counter as the clerk finally sets aside his magazine and joins them in the aisle. "Problem?" he says curtly. He towers over all three of them, his shadow mountainous under the stark fluorescent lighting. Stan decides the heroin creep is going to haul ass out of there just as soon as he registers what's happening. Which'll hopefully be sooner than later.

"No, no problem," Kyle says quickly, waving his hands. "He just mistook me for someone else."

The man just licks his cracked lips and stares. His bloodshot eyes slowly roam Kyle's body, a deep, invasive gaze that makes Kyle wince and cross his arms quickly over his chest. Stan pulls Kyle behind him.

"Hey, dude, just back off," he says. "There's no one here who knows you."

"Soft, soft like silk," the man murmurs. "It's been so long."

Then he reaches out one grimy hand to touch Kyle's cheek. Stan flinches back, dragging Kyle with him, and the clerk says, "That's it, you're out of here," and grabs the junkie by the wrist.

It all happens so fast.

With sudden, adrenaline-fueled precision, the man drops the bottle of vodka and plunges a hand into his coat pocket, and what he drags out is a semi-automatic handgun with the safety latch already undone. It's a weapon with no right being in a civilian's possession, polished and police-issue, probably stolen. The clerk doesn't even have time to blink: the man stabs the barrel against his forehead and empties three bullets between his eyes, the shots deafening in the tiny store.

The clerk hits the ground flat on his back and does not move again. A huge pool of blood spreads slowly across the tile, delicately flowering when it touches the edge of the spilled alcohol.

Stan must've screamed, because his throat suddenly aches and his breath is coming in strained, asthmatic hitches. He and Kyle have both hit the floor sometime in the last two seconds. He scrambles up first and hauls Kyle to his feet, throwing himself forward with his arms outstretched when he realizes the guy is pointing the gun at them now, smiling faintly.

"Dude, what the _fuck_!" His voice is shrill and panicked, even to his own ears. "Don't shoot!"

"Taylor," says the junkie tenderly, like an infant.

"Oh god," Kyle moans.

"His name is Kyle!" Stan yells.

This ruins the man's fragile delusion. His face twists. He shoves the gun under Stan's chin, forcing his head back. "Over here or he dies, Taylor," he hisses, beckoning, and Kyle cries out in panic and practically throws himself at their assailant. The man relaxes immediately into a smile. He folds Kyle tenderly inside his dirty jacket, gives the gun one last push into Stan's jaw, then lowers it to one side.

"But I don't know _you_," he says distantly. He sways on his feet, making Kyle stagger with him, then slowly refocuses. "You can help us, for now, I guess. We need a little help."

"S-sure." Stan hates his voice for trembling, but he's fucking petrified, and clearly, so is Kyle. They would be so much more courageous by themselves, but they're too scared for each other to know what to do. Love like a weakness, envy the motive. The man is gently stroking Kyle's hip. "What do you want me to do?"

"Open the register and the safe."

"I don't _work_ here!"

"I could kill you now," he suggests calmly, and raises the gun again.

Teeth chattering, Stan lifts his hands and begins inching towards the counter. "Fine, I'm going, okay. I'm going. _Fuck_!" His left sneaker slides in the clerk's blood, nearly making him fall. A sob escapes him as he kneels over and begins picking gingerly through his blood-soaked shirt, finding a set of keys in the front pocket. He also spots a slip of paper behind his nametag that might be the safe code. He takes both items and backs to the front of the store, leaving red footprints.

"Move slower," the man instructs, rubbing a hand quickly across his eyes. He obviously feels like shit, but that doesn't stop his fingers from moving slowly under the hem of Kyle's sweater. His smile returns. He's treating this whole thing like it's just a horrible nightmare, which is probably what it is to him; he's a hophead in withdrawal with a gun and two sixteen-year-old hostages. One of them at his immediate convenience.

Kyle shudders at the man's touch. "Stan," he whimpers.

"I'm getting there, just keep still," Stan says numbly. He finally bumps into the counter, holding his arms up as he moves behind the cheap plasticized cabinets. He barely feels his fingers as he rattles the register key into place. It pops open, twinkling cheerfully. The Gas 'n Go doesn't do much business, but there's maybe seventy dollars for giving back change. Stan gathers the cash and grimly wishes he could spit in God's eyes. Their favorite clerk was murdered over three twenties and a ten.

"Put it in a bag," the man says. He reaches inside the freezer and takes out a fresh drink, lifting it considerately to Kyle's lips first. "This is your favorite, remember, in Puerto Vallarta? Four days and three nights. Oh, heaven. You were so much younger back then. Have you gotten any better?"

Kyle chokes in the drink.

"Sweetheart." The man softly kisses his neck, pushes the bottle back to his mouth. "The safe," he reminds Stan.

Stan consults the piece of paper and begins punching in numbers. It takes him three tries to get it right, he's shaking so badly. There are three drawers inside the safe, each with a few hundred dollars and some coins, and he empties everything into a plastic bag. It's a good few minutes before he finally straightens. He keeps dropping the change. Now the junkie is operating off seas of hard liquor, too unstable to even stand up anymore. He drags Kyle across the room and sits down in a chair by the door. He's clutching the gun carelessly, like a prop.

"Here's all the money in the store," Stan says, placing the bag on the counter. "You have what you came for, now leave us alone!"

The man is ignoring him. "Come sit with me," he begs Kyle, whining like a child.

Kyle's a mess, badly frightened and already woozy from the alcohol. "Oh god, oh god," he whispers, his eyes unfocused. "Stan, please don't get hurt. We have to get out of this together."

"No one is going to get hurt," Stan says, and tries to believe it.

The man jerks on Kyle's sleeve. "Hey, I heard you two talking when I came in. Haiku. You were always good at things like that, Taylor, but you friend can't get it right. I can do better, listen." His eyes close briefly, revealing dark purple circles. "You and me dancing," he says huskily. "The sunlight on your shoulders. True love never dies."

"I'm not in love with you!" Kyle cries.

Without warning, he raises the gun and fires into the ceiling. One of the lights shatters. Stan and Kyle both duck as the glass pours down over them, tinkling musically against the ground. Neither of them can stop screaming.

"--you fucking _crazy_?--"

"--Stan! Stan, are you okay?"

They're still trying to recover when the man seizes Kyle's wrists and pulls him into his lap. Kyle yells and struggles, but even the man's drugged-out strength is enough to overpower all the fight in his slim body. Forced to sit still, Kyle hawks back and spits in his face. The man roars in outrage and thrusts the gun against his cheek, a bruising blow that makes Kyle's mouth bleed. Stan screams when he sees the thin scarlet line running from the corner of his lips, staining the collar of his shirt. His knees crunch in glass.

"You sick fucker!" he screams. "You bastard! You have your fucking money, what the fuck do you _want_ from us?"

The man smiles. Four of his horrible teeth are missing in the middle. Stan realizes belatedly that he's asked a stupid question. The man wants to play with them; this is how he gets his kicks. He wants to put his stolen gun in Kyle's mouth and rape him right there in the store, he wants to make Stan watch before he shoots them both.

"Sit over here, friend," he says gently. "Bring the cash."

Kyle twists around to see what he'll do. At the sight of the steel against his pale face, Stan finds himself crawling towards them without thinking. He sits at the man's unwashed feet. He'll fucking kiss them, if that'll save Kyle's life. Kyle reaches for his hand. Stan grabs it and squeezes back as hard as he can.

"With this money, I'll finally be able to buy some high-class from my dealer," the man enthuses, paging through the bills, worked up into an almost sexual delight. "The good stuff. Beautiful! Feels like you're flying, Taylor--you and I will be living it up; we'll make love all day. We'll go back to Puerto Vallarta or Guaymas and lay together in sand."

He inadvertently pushes the gun harder against Kyle's cheek. Kyle winces, his mouth already swelling.

"You are not taking him with you," Stan says tightly.

A few seconds of silence. The man regards him with surprise and dislike, having already forgotten his presence, his facing darkening into dumb fury as he registers Stan's infringement in their lives. "You're right. There's no room for you," he says coldly, and pushes the barrel against his hollow of his throat.

It's the second time in fifteen minutes that he's had a gun turned on him. It doesn't get any easier; his heartbeat pounds in every inch of his body.

Kyle screams in protest. The man continues to ignore him, so he shifts on his lap and desperately crushes their mouths together, crying and trying to smile at him at the same time. "No, no, we don't need to do this!" he sobs, feverishly stroking his face. "Let's just go! Forget about him, we have each other! That's all that matters!"

"Yes," the man whispers, kissing him back. "This is what matters."

"Puerto Vallarta," Kyle promises, tears streaming down his face. "Please. _Please_."

The man looks at him, then back down at Stan. He's got the hollowed-out look of someone who's been using for twenty years or so, soulless, worthless. Even Kyle can't redeem him--Stan understands in that instant that they are not going to walk away. The man sees that he knows and grinds the gun cruelly against Stan's neck. Stan refuses to cough, even though it hurts like hell.

"He means so much to you, Taylor," the man says finally. "I think we should give him a few last words."

Kyle gets hysterical. "_No_! Just leave him! He won't tell anyone where we're going; we don't need to worry about--"

The man interrupts him calmly. "Seventeen is a good number."

"_What_?"

"Seventeen syllables. He gets exactly one haiku to tie up any loose ends. Poetic justice in action, isn't it." He smiles his soft, pitiless smile again. "See if you can get it right this time, friend. If you go one syllable over, I'll shoot you both."

Kyle tries to reach for him, sobbing, but the junkie shoves him roughly back into the chair. He seizes Kyle's swollen face and turns him forcibly towards Stan. The gun never wavers.

"Shh. You'll want to hear this."

Stan's whole world has fallen to pieces around him. He stares at the blood on the floor, the bag of money, the steel glittering just above his collarbones. He stares into Kyle's wide, terrified eyes. And though he wants to be furious, wants to defend his life and fly away with his body still intact, he can't help the sad smile that touches his face. God, his standards have dropped so low in the last fifteen seconds. He's just grateful enough having seventeen syllables instead of zero.

The man _will_ fire that gun. He understands this.

The words come to him silently.

"Kyle," he begins, softly. He _has _to say his name, _has_ to. Needs to feel the consonants in his mouth one last time.

"Stan, _no_," Kyle sobs. "You know I was wrong! I was so wrong! You can't say _anything_ in a haiku, nothing important--don't play this fucking game--"

"I've always loved you." Seven down.

"No! _Stan_, please!"

"You're my whole world." Eleven.

"Mine too! You're my life, you're _everything_! If you die, I'll die with you! I--"

"_Be strong_." Adlibbed, because he cannot let Kyle die. Kyle has so much to offer the world. Thirteen.

Kyle whirls on the man, feverishly desperate, trying to seize the gun. The man throws him into the wall. Kyle collapses against the doorframe, moaning. Blood drips from his chin. Stan waits until he meets his gaze before smiling at him again, his own tears finally rolling down his cheeks. He works hard on his smile. It's the last happy gesture he'll ever exchange with Kyle.

"Please don't blame your…"

Seventeen. _Self_. Please don't blame your_self_. He shakes his head, dimly amused. He's run out of syllables, but it just doesn't seem worth it, killing Kyle for the sake of finishing a fucking poem.

After all, they're just words.

And one of them was "please."

"Goodnight, my friend," the man says gently, and as Kyle screams again and lunges to his feet, he pulls the trigger.

* * *

It hurts less than he expects it to. Maybe pain this great is just too consuming to seem real, because he only feels the shot superficially, as if experiencing it through another person's body. Hitting the tile is like falling into bed after a long day at school, that's all. They're suddenly eye to eye, staring at each other dazedly, uncomprehending. Just half an hour ago, they were kissing against the ice cream freezer.

Then Kyle reaches for him, touches his shoulders, his chest, his hair. They both arch into that contact. His hands are soaked in blood when he pulls them away. "I love you," Kyle mouths, his tears trickling onto Stan's cheeks like soft rain. "I love you. I love you so much."

_I love you too_, thinks Stan, and finally lets his weary eyes drift shut.

_I love you, Kyle._

* * *

He wakes up to the smell of lilacs. The scent is so clean and strong that it initially overpowers the darker undertones of blood, convenience store coffee, and hospital sterility. In the moment before he feels the IV in his arm, he wonders if he's dead--then, as pain screams through his body, he realizes it's something even more incredible: he's _alive_.

"Oh my god, he's waking up," someone says disbelievingly. "Butters! Go get a nurse!"

The sound of footsteps scurrying away, the door clicking shut. There's a whooshing noise as someone draws the blinds. He tries to sit up. There's a mess of wires around him that prevents any dramatic movement, but he receives help from either side, hands carefully lifting him upright in the papery sheets. Someone pushes pillows behind his back. The other strokes his face, and he looks over unsteadily, trying to place that familiar calloused touch.

"What happened?" he whispers.

"It's…been a long time," Kenny McCormick says in a strange voice. He looks like an angel, his hair glowing like fire against the growing dawn. "God, dude…we thought you weren't going to make it. We thought we'd lost both of you…we nearly…" he chokes suddenly and has to turn away, clutching his stomach. "Fuck. _Fuck_."

"Damn it, Kenny, don't puke in here again."

He follows this new voice to his right.

Eric Cartman wets his lips, swallows, then meets his gaze with swollen brown eyes. "You really fucking scared us," he says tonelessly. "We only heard later that evening…some hostage situation at the Gas 'n Go, very delicate, high school kids still inside. Two out-of-state fishermen called the police when they heard the shots. It was on the news and everything. You should've seen all the fucking sirens, it was like a lightshow."

"He was clinically insane," Kenny adds, lifting his head. "Heroin addict, killed a cop, kidnapped some little boy then murdered him in Mexico. And then he came _here_."

None of this interests him.

Kenny sees this in his eyes and shakes his head. He stumbles away, dry-heaves painfully. Cartman pats him on the back, speaking to him quickly and quietly, then hoists him up by the elbow and helps him out the door. Only when the room is perfectly quiet does he cross the room and sits on the edge of the bed. They stare at each other for a long time. Then Cartman pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and tosses it into his lap.

"He lasted about an hour here in the hospital," he explains quietly. "The bullet was irretrievable, they could stop the internal bleeding. He was pretty drugged up, I don't think he could feel much--he even woke up once, but he was pretty delirious. His--his lungs--he couldn't speak. He could only write. That's…that's when he did this."

Cartman has to close his eyes to get the words out.

"He died ten minutes later."

Trembling, he unfolds the paper. The handwriting is painstaking and large, like child's print, but it's still recognizable. He reads it three times before it finally hits him. He drops his head into his arms and begins to cry.

Cartman folds the note into a Get Well card for safekeeping. He knows how precious the words inside are, because, Christ, there are so few of them. He already knows them by heart:

_Stan,_

_Seventeen can hold what  
__counts: breathe in,  
__breathe out,  
__live._

_Love you.  
__Kyle._

* * *

End

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Did the twist at the end come off at all? Please let me know what you think. I'd be incredibly grateful.


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